Bucko wrote:What makes you think that? Because Japanese people and Japanophile gaijin say so? Repeat after me, all languages are the same. All languages are the same. All langauges are the same.

While I as well disagree with the OP, that doesn't mean you have to be rude about it.

Also, I highly contest the fact that all languages are the same. Each language is generally tailored to being able to easily and succinctly express what values/ideas are important to that culture. Which is why there are phrases in English that are hard to express in Japanese, as well as the reverse (or between any two languages for that matter)

Harisenbon wrote:Each language is generally tailored to being able to easily and succinctly express what values/ideas are important to that culture.

I don't know about that. Sometimes what ideas or values are important to the culture are expressed non-easily and non-succinctly, like the very complicated politeness system of Japanese or the way that longer utterances are often politer (e.g. 高い vs. ちょっと高いと思いますけど...) And the grammatical elements of the language are unlikely to be culturally related at all. But of course culture has some effect on language use.

It's true in a basic sense that you can express anything in one language that you can in another, but not necessarily with equal brevity or naturalness.

I don't understand what the OP means by "a "deep" meaning is held in the Japanese language", but it sounds a little suspicious to me.

Yudan Taiteki wrote:like the very complicated politeness system of Japanese or the way that longer utterances are often politer (e.g. 高い vs. ちょっと高いと思いますけど...)

Getting into politeness though is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I've noticed that in English as well as Japanese (and I assume other languages as well) the more you talk, in general, the more polite you are being.

"We should not go there.""I'm not quite sure that going there would be the best idea."

It makes me wonder if there are any languages where speaking politely is actually easier/shorter than speaking casually?I have a feeling not, because if it is easier to speak politely, what's the point of speaking casually?